Will you tell us about your experience with pet sitters?

Two current experiences friends have had:

A friend is spending the summer in NY and advertised for a sitter for her cats. She was telling me about one who seemed to hit it off so well with her shy younger cat, but was questioning a little of her past. Turns out in a world fo small coincidences I knew the young lady and was able to give her a good reference. I checked in with them last week and both arehappy with teh sitting experience so far.

Another friend was off to Hawaii for a couple weeks and left her 18 month old doggie behind with a woman recommended by a close friend. My friend would give it all a B+, everything went smoothly except the dog gained weight and was fed from the table. So now her dog is being retrained to not expect treats from those at the table, and has to cut back on his feeding a bit. My friend figures next time she’ll be more clear on “don’ts” for a dog sitter. The other thing is the sitter realized the dog’s paws were tender after walking the dog in the afternoon on hot pavement, but didn’t give the dog a full walk after dark.

Former sitter here. I wouldn’t feed an animal from the table under any circumstances.

I myself would not trust a stranger to come into my house 3 times a day to take care of my dog. I take her to a kennel or drop her off at my SIL’s. I was on vacation a week ago and my wife arranged for her friend to come in every other day to feed the rabbit and turtle and didn’t tell me she agreed to allow the friend to host a workshop in her studio with 8 strangers in our house. I am still very upset about that one.

I know of someone that hired an 18 year old to come in twice a day Friday through Sunday to feed and potty her 4 dogs. The 18 year old forgot and the dogs messed all over the house and got the refrigerator open and ate food out of fridge.
Kennel the dog.

We’ve had a couple friend of ours stay at our house for a few days for one vacation we took, and my mother-in-law stayed for a few days another time, but we’ve never had a stranger come check on our pets before. I don’t really like someone in my house when I’m not there, though. I always clean before I go on vacation and I don’t want their messes in my house.

We’re going on vacation later this year and already plan to board Daisy because, quite frankly, I’d rather have her boarded somewhere where she’ll be walked daily than have her sit at home alone all day long except for a few minutes a day when someone comes in to feed her or take her outside to potty. The boarding facility we use is $100 for 5 nights…not too shabby, and at least she’ll get more socialization than she would be holed up in our house. We also have a cat, but my sister will be coming to our house daily to feed her and scoop her litter. She’s a loner, like most cats, but she has been known to shit outside of the litter box when she’s mad at us, so we’re not sure when my sister will really be doing when she comes over. She’d be even more pissed if we boarded her, though.